Page 7 - James Slagle News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

The ugliness. i saw the hatred, the violence, the misery. and i said i'm going to be something else. i am going to become a thinking man. by the way, that's hard to do. but i spent years reading, studying, looking within myself. i'm one of the most fortunate men that ever lived. >> slagle runs the library and provides legal help to other inmates. >> where they made the error on your time, your two sentences are running concurrently, which means they run together. however, when they give you your jail credit, they only put the jail credit on the one sentence and forgot to put it on there. someh...

Of years it's been since i've been in prison. ♪ it's been 18 long years ♪ in this old cold prison sometimes i feel so all alone ♪ sweet mountain of home ♪ ♪ so far away ♪ i'm lonesome and blue ♪ that's all i can say >> one of the oldest inmates in brushy mountain's permanent population is james slagle. slagle is serving a 318-year sentence for murder and has been here longer than any other inmate. >> i've been in the tennessee prison system without getting out, i started my 39th year three weeks ago today. and i spent 24 years of that time here at brushy mountain. i decided, jim,...

The situation, accept what it is, and try to find a reasonable, honest, positive way to get through that situation and come out improved on the other side. >> one inmate who confided in slagle over the years is stephen hughley. hughley was sentenced to life for killing his mother and given a death sentence for murdering a prison counselor. slagle knows him as something other than a cold-blooded killer. >> i discovered a side to steve, maybe no one else ever saw it. you wouldn't believe who his favorite musician is. barry manilow. i mean, the music, the soft, sentimental love songs. that's his ...

Been in prison. ♪ it's been 18 long years ♪ in this old cold prison sometimes i feel so all alone ♪ sweet mountain of home ♪ ♪ so far away ♪ i'm lonesome and blue >> one of the oldest inmates in brushy mountain's permanent population is james slagle. slagle is serving a 318-year sentence for murder and has been here longer than any other inmate. >> i've been in the tennessee prison system without getting out, i started my 39th year three weeks ago today. and i spent 24 years of that time here at brushy mountain. i decided, jim, you've got to become something else. and so i looked i...

Back in the hollow, you know? you got the bluff on one side and it's surrounded by mountains the last stop because the road ends at brushy mountain. and there's -- there's nowhere else to go. >> but that didn't stop the prison's most notorious inmate from attempting to escape. in 1977, nine years after he killed civil rights leader martin luther king jr., james earl ray went over the wall. during our shoot at brushy mountain, we met an inmate who was not only there, but tried to talk ray out of it. >> i told him, i said, james, you've got no pickup, no car, i said as soon as your foot touches ...